To Prosecute or Not to Prosecute?

I recently read an article about a ten year old girl who recently died after a fight with another one of her elementary school classmates.  Joanna Ramos, died after trauma to the head during a pre-planned fight in the alleyway behind her school.  This appears to be just another report on a killing, but the problem with this case is that the mother of the ten year old was extremely un-happy to find out that the girl who killed her daughter was not prosecuted, and rightly so.  First of all the most disturbing thing about this report is the fact that the young girls involved were only ten and eleven years old!  It is believed that the girls were fighting over a boy, which is a mute point, but my issue is how can these girls even get the chance to have this fight?  In an elementary school, students should be escorted inside at the beginning of school and escorted out at the end of school so that at all times during the day there is a teacher available to watch them.  I know at my school if a fight breaks out it is literally taken under control in about thirty seconds or less, I don't think I've ever seen one become a full fledged fight.  So how can an elementary school, with students who are obviously so much younger than I am have less supervision than I do?  How can our education system be considered good if students don't even have enough supervision to not get into fatal fights with each other? There should have been a teacher around, and there is no excuse on the school's part for what happened.  This event should have not lasted long enough to do enough damage to kill a child, or even have happened in the first place.  The second issue is obviously with the problem that the young girl was not prosecuted.  Now I understand that she is eleven, and people who oppose my argument are going to say how are you going to punish an eleven year old?  Isn't the fact that she unintentionally killed another student enough punishment?  The thing is both students were at fault and sadly enough one of them already experienced the consequences of their decisions.  They meant to harm each other, that was decided when they planned their little fight.  But the child who killed Joanna needs to at least be charged as a minor.  Even if the killing itself was unintentional, harming Joanna was not and something should be done as punishment.  I think this shows a fault in our justice system.  That we don't have ways to take care of situations like this, that we just let them go when the conclusion is hard to reach because of age or what have you.  If the child is old enough to get into that kind of a fight, then they are old enough to receive the consequences of that.  Now I'm not saying they should be thrown in jail like they do with adults, I'm just saying something should have been done.  What if that was your child?  Wouldn't you like to know that we have a government that set up a justice system that would punish (and of course judge the punishment based on the circumstances) the person who brought harm to your child?  I know I would.

"Lesser of Two Evils" Editorial Review

After reading Carrie Hicks editorial Lesser of Two Evils, I can say that we come close to sharing almost identical political views because of the fact that I agree with all of her opinions on the political issues discussed in this blog.  I would like to see where she got her information from that she used to back her opinions, particularly for the quote she gives from Santorum. But I will say that it seems that for the most part her conclusions were drawn from an overall view of the subject as a opposed to finite details. This means that the information she supported her opinions with could have been past knowledge or tidbits she has picked up as she's watched the elections.  This shows that in her case citing her sources may not have been necessary, so the lack in sources does not completely take away from her credibility.  Aside from her lack of sources I have no complaints for this editorial.  I agree with what she is trying to say about the candidates since I feel the same way.  I don't really support one candidate or the other since I don't agree completely with any of their platforms.  I like how she describes it as choosing the “lesser of the two evils” because that is exactly how I feel right now when it comes to choosing a candidate.  This will be my first year to vote and I want to make sure I choose exactly the right candidate who will support my political beliefs, but what do I do when none of the candidate do this?  And I love, and I mean love, what she says about where our candidates focus seems to be now days.  “But, apparently, the bigger concerns for our candidates are decisions that don’t involve them and what some people choose to do in their bedrooms,” to me this hits the nail on the head with the current political issues in circulation.  Who cares about who’s marrying who?  Why don’t we put all that effort towards something that will affect the entire population instead of just a small portion of it?  For example, the awesome economy we are living in right now is on the very top of my list of concerns and I’m only 17.

Health care

Healthcare is one of the biggest issues in our modern society.  It is vital in determining how easily we can access and afford what we need to maintain our health; whether that is medicine, procedures, or basic check ups.  So it comes as no surprise that it is one of the main deciding factors in what candidate we choose to support in our presidential elections.  When Obama was elected he enacted the Affordable Care Act.  The Act itself outlines a plan in which it will provide health insurance coverage to more than 94% of Americans but still staying under Obama’s 900 billion dollar budget, thus it hopes to reduce the nations budget deficit over the next ten years.  The Act itself has recently come under fire and is currently undergoing review in the Supreme Court due requirement of “minimal essential coverage,” also known as the individual mandate.  The mandate itself requires that every American have minimum health care insurance or be charged with a penalty in their tax return.  It is being declared unconstitutional under the first Article of the Constitution.  

         I find it interesting that Obama was elected partially based on his plan for healthcare and now two years after the act has already been implemented it has gone to the Supreme Court because it was declared “unconstitutional.”  Especially after the Act has already claimed to have given affordable health care to 2.5 million young people.  If this act was unconstitutional why hasn’t something been said before now?  More specifically why hasn’t something been said before the 8 or so months leading up the 2012 presidential elections?  I find it hard to believe that they are just now finding this act unconstitutional when the plan has been public since Obama had his first presidential elections in 2008.  The correlation between the two of these events could be completely independent and I may just be reading to far into the circumstances, but I found that connection to be interesting.  Furthermore, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.  The act has already given us evidence to it’s success with the example of the 2.5 million young people who now have affordable health insurance as well as lowering the cost of prescription drugs for the elderly.  The individual mandate simply requires that everyone be required to have the minimum health insurance, which I think is fair to the citizens that have been paying for other people’s healthcare through their taxes because they did not have insurance.  I do understand that some people truly can not afford health care and that’s where I think we need to step in and address those people, but the majority of our population can afford healthcare but merely have not stepped up and gotten insurance since they can get healthcare for free and paid for by tax dollars.  The Supreme Court justices are apparently looking for a way to compromise if the individual mandate is seen as unconstitutional, and want to find a way to keep the act intact if this event should occur.    Like I’ve said before this is merely a teenagers perspective, I may be completely wrong or misguided but this is what I have gotten from the information presented about this issue. 

Sources

President Confident Health Law Will Stand, New York Times

Responsible Reform For the Middle Class

 Legal Challenges to the Affordable Health Care Act

Obamacare Versus I Don't Care by Brent Abrahamson

In the blog, Obamacare Versus I Don't Care by Brent Abrahamson, he discusses one of our most leading political issues, healthcare.   The author himself gives no background information about himself or his political background, which makes me question how much he truly knows about this issue, but he is basing his current opinion off of a personal experience which shows that he has a firm example of where the government is failing in healthcare.  In the blog he claims that if you are to choose Republican in the elections you would be supporting a group of people that represent a government who doesn’t care about it’s citizens. While if you chose Democratic, or more specifically Obama, then you would be supporting a government that does support it’s citizens.  Abrahamson uses a first hand account of a run in at his pharmacy as an example of our current government and how it is failing.   Abrahamson describes when he was in line at the pharmacy and a young man was having problems getting his medication, after being told that he could not get it there the young man tried to ask where else he could go to get his medication and the pharmacist simply turned the him away.   After, the young man asked how much his medication would be if he paid for it himself and the clerk told him $900.  Abrahamson told the man what he could try to do and meanwhile found out that the medication was something vital to the young mans life.  I believe that this particular story is extremely helpful to Abrahamson’s opinion.  It brings out an emotional response from the reader by making you pity the young man and be angry towards our government for not being able to support someone for something they need to live.  I think one thing that Abrahamson fails to see is that Obama has been in office for a full term now, and since this was a recent experience, it obviously happened under Obama’s healthcare policy.  Meaning that the policy that Obama has enacted is not any different from the one that he describes the republicans having, which is that they should repeal the Affordable Health Care Act. If Obama was really any better than the Republican policy then why is this event occurring under his presidency? 

Church vs. State, Should It Be Re-Considered?

In this editorial by Jim Burkee, he discusses the revival of the issue based on the separation of church and state.  Candidate Rick Santorum is apparently an advocator for the “wall” between church and state to be removed and that the government should begin to intervene with religious affairs.  Santorum brought this debate back up when he discussed John F. Kennedy’s speech on the matter in which Kennedy supported the separation between church and state.  Santorum commented on this speech saying that it “makes me want to throw up” and that Kennedy “for the first time articulated the vision saying, ‘No. Faith is not allowed in the public square.’”  Burkee does not agree with Santorum in his views what so ever.   He says that Santorum had a “clear misreading of Kennedy’s statement” and that he “exposes a deeper misunderstanding by social conservatives of the exceptionalism of American church-state relations.”  I believe that Burkee is right in his disagreement with Santorum.  First off he poses an extremely legitimate claim.  Backing his argument with evidence and statistics to prove what Santorum has said was wrong.  My favorite is when he called Santorum on being “historically off by more than 150 years in his assertion that Kennedy was the first American president to advocate a wall between church and state.”  I find it interesting that the reporter on the matter knows more than the candidate who is giving speeches on the matter.  Burkee is obviously trying to reach out to his other fellow conservatives who agree with him on the matter as well as conservatives who may be leaning toward Sanotrum as a candidate to vote for.  His main argument that he poses is that religions do better when the state does not become involved in it’s affairs and he doesn’t understand why people, like himself, who are very religious and conservative, don’t understand that having the state interfere with their religious affairs will do more harm than good.    Burkee clearly knows his facts on this matter and has backed all his assertions and all of Santorums false assertions with substantial evidence, I think it makes a legitimate argument and whether you agree with him or not you should go look at the article for yourself at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-burkee-wall-between-church-and-state-20120229,0,315661.story

Mitt Romey's Stance on Immigration vs. His Religion

Considering this is the first year that I will be able to vote, I have chosen a story about one of the political candidates.  I want to be as informed as I can about each candidate before it comes time to vote so that I can make the right decision that will best benefit myself and my political beliefs.  In this article from the Las Angeles Times it discusses Mitt Romney's stance on immigration and how it coincides with his religious beliefs.  According to the article Romney has a very firm stance on immigration which goes against his beliefs as a Mormon.  The Mormon community, in this article it specifically addresses Arizona's Mormon community, supports and provides for illegal immigrants as long as they are working towards citizenship and not committing crimes.  Romney does not agree with this, which shows to his skeptics that he is not completely, as the article says, "beholden" to his religion.  I think it is important for issues like this to be known because if someone based their vote solely on their knowledge that Romney was a Mormon they wouldn't completely understand his stance on many controversies.  To check out the article go to http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-latino-mormons-20120228,0,318640.story.

My Political Beliefs

We place people under many categories to decide if we agree with their beliefs or if they will be a source of argument.  The terms "democrat" and "republican" are simply another one of those tools.  People always want to know which one I reside under and I normally say republican.   The thing is I don't believe myself to be put under a category based on my political beliefs, because I don't think my political beliefs are one or the other.  Granted my beliefs tend to lean more toward the liberal ideology but there are some aspects that are more conservative.    For instance I disagree with Obama in his belief that the wealthy should have higher taxes.  I believe that there should be a flat rate for taxes so that way people would be paying less for taxes if they made less in salary, as well as if they made more they would pay more.   But on the other side I support pro choice, which is considered a more liberal view.  I believe that it is a woman’s choice on whether or not she wants to keep her baby because each situation given in which an abortion is considered is different, with different incentives.  I hope to gain further knowledge about the U.S. government and about each controversy so that I can shape my beliefs based on what I truly believe and not what the people surround me believe.